


Cupid's Touch

by when_you_know_you_know



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-02-20 10:29:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13144755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/when_you_know_you_know/pseuds/when_you_know_you_know
Summary: Cherry, a trainee Cupid, is tasked with bringing together two humans as part of her final assessment. If she successfully makes them fall in love, Cherry will become a fully qualified Cupid. If only human's weren't so complicated...





	1. Aphrodite

“Welcome to ‘Amour Academy’, and congratulations on achieving a place on our prestigious course!”

Cherry beamed brightly as she sat amongst twenty seven other angels, all looking up at the stage where the lead professor, Aphrodite, floated before them, giving them an introduction to their future career.

“In fourteen short argonates you will all be sitting here before me as fully fledged Cupids.”

Cherry’s heart raced with excitement. She had worked so hard for so many argonates to make it here. To the Amour Academy. The most prestigious ‘Cupid Academy’ in heaven.

“Sitting amongst you are your fellow future-Cupid’s. Each of you nominated by your respective neighbourhood representatives to join this programme, all believing you would make brilliant Cupid’s.”

Cherry’s eyes followed Aphrodite as the goddess floated from one end of the stage to the other. Entranced by her flowing long golden hair and bright blue eyes.

“Now, over the next several argonates you will be learning the skills and disciplines that it takes to become the perfect Cupid. Assigned to each of you will be a pair of humans we believe belong together. In your final argonate, you will be required to put all that you’ve learnt into finding these two humans, bringing them together, and having them fall in love.”

Cherry gulped loudly. It all sounded simple enough, but-

“However, as you all know this will be no easy task. Humans are notoriously complex creatures, as God himself has admitted on numerous occasions..”

The group of angels chuckled with Aphrodite.

“So I want you all to remember your very first lesson. Something my own mother once told me.”

Cherry sat forward in her seat, desperate to hear this pearl of wisdom from the great Goddess of Love. Aphrodite stopped moving, and instead leant towards the angels before her, looking at them seriously.

“You cannot change the human. You can only change the environment or circumstances they are in.”

One of the angels to Cherry’s left put his hand up and Aphrodite turned to him sharply, pointing at him with a nod.

“Can we shape-shift?” the angel asked.

“You do whatever means necessary to get your two humans together.” Several of the trainee Cupid’s turned to each other smiling or sighing in relief. Perhaps this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

“However,” Aphrodite added, and the angels immediately turned back to her, “as you will find out during your fifth argonate, shape-shifting will have potentially devastating consequences. It won’t be enough to simply shape-shift into one of your humans and try to seduce the other. There needs to be more  _fate_  involved.”

“How do we use fate?” Another angel asked, this time to Cherry’s right.

Aphrodite smiled, “You will learn that in time. For now, here are the humans you’ve been assigned.”

The trainee Cupid’s all jumped as thick brown files appeared on their laps the moment Aphrodite snapped her fingers. They all opened them eagerly.

Cherry was trembling as she opened her file.

On the first page she read two names:

Beca Mitchell & Chloe Beale.


	2. Finding Chloe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cherry goes down to Earth to find Chloe..

Cherry sucked in a huge breath of fresh Earth-air and smiled as she stood, invisible to human-eye, outside Barden University. It had been several long argonates but she had finally made it to the part of her course that she had been eagerly anticipating. Getting to see her humans in real life at last!

She had worked hard in and out of class. She’d poured over her thick heavy brown file and studied it until she knew every last drop of her assigned humans. Like how many tattoos Beca had and why she’d got them. How many siblings Chloe had and where she was in the order of them. Above all the things that she had read she knew that there was one key way of getting her two humans to meet. And that was through music.

‘Music’ had been at the very top of the section of file labelled ‘Passions’. Beca was passionate about music, but in an entirely different way that Chloe was. Because Beca wouldn’t use the word ‘passionate’ to describe herself liking anything - much to Cherry’s curiosity. This was what had fuelled her determination to insist she got to go to Earth at the earliest possible argonate.

“There’s no WAY Aphrodite will let you go down to Earth early! It just doesn’t happen!” Cadence, Cherry’s classmate had whispered to her as the angels had darted over to Aphrodite’s ‘office’. But Cherry had spoken to the Goddess and to her surprise Aphrodite had granted it, agreeing that she was at a high enough standard to find her assigned humans.

Cherry began milling, invisibly, around the Barden University grounds. According to the file she had on standby, ready to appear with a click of her fingers, her first assigned human - Chloe - should have arrived at Barden today. Ahead of Beca who was due to arrive next week.

She knew Chloe was near. She could feel it in her soul. But the only hope she had of finding her was to look out for red hair and bright blue eyes.

Cherry had studied pictures and videos of Beca and Chloe that God himself (via Aphrodite) had provided the trainee angel. Pictures and videos dating back to when Beca and Chloe had both been born. She knew what the two humans looked like. She’d studied their lives up until this very moment, over and over again, through all thirteen argonates. She just hadn’t officially seen the two with her own eyes yet.

Suddenly Cherry saw a flash of red hair in the distance and she let out a small gasp, snapping her fingers and appearing invisibly beside the girl. Yep, that was Chloe alright. The redhead was beaming brightly at her ‘best friend’ Aubrey Posen.

“Don’t worry Aubrey,” Cherry heard the girl say brightly, “I doubt the whole of campus has even seen the video.”

The angel smiled. True to the characteristics that she’d read, Chloe definitely was a good person through and through. Sadly it seemed Chloe’s best friend was less so.

“Aca-scuse me??” Aubrey said sharply with a frown and Cherry watched as Chloe hesitated. The angel felt sadness towards her human. That was another thing she’d read about Chloe’s characteristics: Chloe had very little confidence.

Cherry took a deep breath then clicked her fingers. Time on earth stood still and the humans around the angel froze. This particular skill had been something Cherry had excelled in at ‘Amour Academy’ during her sixth argonate.

Earth time was an odd concept to the trainee Cupid. One argonate equated to seven years in earth time. And Cherry still couldn’t believe that the mere thirteen argonates she’d spent learning all about her two assigned humans actually equated to ninety one earth years. So technically she’d been training to become a Cupid seventy years before Chloe had even been born!

The angel summoned her large heavy assigned brown file and skimmed through the pages, holding it open once she found “Chloe’s Characteristic’s” page. She summoned a quill, and wrote in a box at the bottom titled: “Things to assist with” two very simple words: ‘build confidence’.

If there was one thing Cherry knew, it was that if she was going to get either of her two humans together, Chloe would need confidence..


	3. Finding Beca

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cherry goes down to Earth to find Beca..

Cherry bobbled patiently across the courtyard of Barden University, invisible to the large clusters of humans, many of whom had arrived at Barden for the first time. Her other assigned human - Beca - was due to arrive today and was the other person she needed to find. This would be no easy task. Not only were there hundreds of humans around to look through, but many had dark brown hair like Cherry knew Beca had.

As she continued down the courtyard her soul felt a strange yearning to head for a cab that was beginning to pull up into the college. One of the lessons Cherry had learnt during the third argonate of her training had been all about the importance of listening to any yearning her soul may have. It often was a sign that it was the right decision. So the angel arrived beside the cab that had just stopped.

She peered in the window and there she was. Beca Mitchell. Her other assigned human and the one she needed to pair up with Chloe Beale in order to successfully qualify as a fully fledged Cupid.

Cherry tried to contain her excitement as she watched Beca climb out of the vehicle and accept her luggage from the trunk of the cab. The human didn’t seem nearly as moody as the angel first thought she would be. But then again, Cherry hadn’t heard Beca talk yet. In all the videos she’d seen of Beca during the human’s life so far, her sarcastic nature made her out to be far icier than the trainee Cupid knew Beca truly was.

The past earth-week that the angel had spent watching over Chloe, Cherry had slowly been finding natural methods in which to build the redhead’s confidence. Techniques such as trickling positive powerful thoughts into the human’s mind, making her feel empowered in her dreams overnight, and ensuring kick-ass songs were always playing on the human’s iPod or radio. The change in Chloe’s characteristics were becoming noticeable, so much so that by the time Cherry had sat with Aphrodite at the end of the earth-week, the goddess had identified it and congratulated the angel on a wise decision to increase Chloe’s confidence.

As Beca fumbled with her laptop case, Cherry quickly summoned the heavy brown file and flicked through to the section titled ‘Beca’s Characteristics’. There the angel reminded herself that one of Beca’s key characteristics was that she was rather ‘unapproachable’. Cherry decided she needed to see how true this was.

The trainee Cupid looked around and noticed a greeter from Barden University looking down at her clipboard nearby. With a click of her fingers Cherry flew into the body of the staff member, no longer invisible. She wasted no time in striding up to Beca, smiling brightly, “Hi there! Welcome to Barden University! What dorm?”

The human hesitated, a little alarmed by the greeter’s enthusiasm, “Uh Baker Hall, I think..”

Cherry beamed at her, having memorised every inch of Barden University and the surrounding area during her eighth argonate, “Okay, so what you’re gonna do is…”

As the disguised angel turned away to point Beca in the direction of where the human needed to walk to get to Baker Hall, she failed to notice a car pull up to a stop nearby. This was an example of a consequence that Aphrodite herself had tried to warn the trainee Cupid’s about, should they choose to shape-shift.

In the back of that car had been a handsome young man, singing along to the radio. He had looked out the car window, catching Beca’s eye, giving her an enticing grin. Beca had raised her eyebrows with a bemused grin, but within moments the guy had been driven off by his parents and a disguised Cherry turned to look back at Beca, “…your campus map. And your official BU rape whistle.”

The angel handed the whistle to Beca eagerly, thrilled that the human appeared to be smiling at her, even if it was more of a teasing grin than Chloe’s sweet smile. “Don’t blow it unless it’s actually happening!” Cherry added, pointing at Beca brightly.

The trainee Cupid watched as her assigned human placed the whistle between her teeth, then slowly sloped off.

Cherry snapped out of the greeter’s body, knowing that all that would be left for that human would be the hazy memory of what had happened.

With another snap of her fingers, the large file appeared beside her. Again she found the page titled ‘Beca’s Characteristics’, summoned a quill, and placed a neat line through the word ‘unapproachable’. The human DEFINITELY hadn’t been unapproachable just now.

The file disappeared again with a satisfying ‘poof’ sound. Then the angel happily bumbled away alongside Beca, invisible to all humans, and eagerly hoping that now they were both at Barden, soon her two assigned humans - Beca and Chloe - would meet..


	4. The Activities Fair

Cherry smiled as she floated invisibly alongside Beca while the human sauntered through the gaggles of ‘freshmen’ and older college students at the ‘activities fair’. She’d been impressed with the way Beca had introduced herself to her roommate ‘Kimmy Jin’, pleased that her human might at least have _some_ sort of manners that would hopefully make her eventual first encounter with Chloe a fairly pleasant one.

Cherry was also fairly impressed with the way the brunette had interacted with her father, particularly since one of the biggest things to happen to Beca had been several years ago when the man had left the family home to be with another woman. Divorce was one of the biggest signs that a Cupid had used the ‘shapeshifting’ option too many times to try to get their two assigned humans together. As Cherry had found out in her fifth argonate of training, divorce and sometimes even death were two of the most catastrophic consequences of a Cupid shapeshifting.

The angel knew Chloe was here at the activities fair too. Somewhere. She could feel it. And the trainee Cupid squeed a little in excitement. This was it, the first chance to truly have her assigned humans meet!

While Beca looked over at Kimmy Jin finding her feet with the ‘Korean Society’, Cherry thought it would be the perfect opportunity to seek out her other assigned human, Chloe, just to see how the redhead was fairing since gaining a touch of extra confidence this week.

The angel appeared invisibly at Chloe’s side, watching while the human listened to Aubrey stressing about something. They stood at a booth titled ‘The Barden Bellas’ - something that Cherry had read in Chloe’s section of her ‘assignment file’ was the most important thing in the redhead’s life (a sub-section of music).

“Why don’t we just look for good singers?” Chloe suggested fairly confidently, and Cherry felt a swell of pride. Because had this been a week ago there was no way Chloe would have had the confidence to even suggest _that_ to Aubrey - the blonde being so prickly.

Suddenly a large freshman stepped up to the two humans, a big toothy grin on her face, “Wha? Good singers?” and Cherry watched curiously as the new human, an unusual character that was for sure, began fibbing pretty extensively about her talents. She could sing though, which seemed to add an ounce of hope to Chloe’s soul - something that Cherry felt.

The angel snapped her fingers and her assignment file floated beside her. She opened it and saw the complicated ‘soul pie chart’ that was constantly changing due to what was happening to Chloe at that very moment and what could potentially happen in the future, based on her current thoughts and interactions. Hope was opening up a little and it put a small smile on the angel’s face. Perhaps this ‘Fat Amy’ (as the human called herself) would be a valuable member in her quest to get Beca & Chloe together.

To Cherry’s delight, a usually prickly Aubrey seemed relatively impressed too, handing a flyer to the Australian, telling her they would see her at auditions. Pleased with the knowledge that Chloe’s confidence had perked up and her hope had been ignited, the angel snapped her fingers and appeared invisibly at Beca’s side again. The brunette was still a little way away from _The Barden Bellas_ ’ booth and Cherry took a deep breath to try to calm her impatience - something she’d learnt in her first argonate.

Aphrodite had warned all the trainee Cupid’s that it would be very normal to feel impatient during the time it took for their two assigned humans to meet and fall in love. But Cherry was yet to find out just how impatient she would get with Beca and Chloe..

Forty Earth minutes had passed before Cherry decided she needed to do something. Beca had been swanning around the fair and if anything had been moving further and further _away_ from Chloe and _The Barden Bellas_ ’ booth! She could sense her human getting bored and as the girl paused to glance at a ‘ _Musicians Society_ ’ booth Cherry snapped her fingers to consult the large brown assignment file. She filtered through to Beca’s ‘soul pie chart’ and the ‘hope’ section was almost completely gone. Beca was losing hope of ever finding a society that would reignite her passion for music - the most important thing in her life.

The angel realised she _had_ to do something. So in a desperate attempt, and one that she’d never anticipated having to use so early, Cherry floated over to a nearby table, hid underneath it, and shapeshifted into the large blonde human who had spoken to Chloe at the booth earlier. She scrambled out from under the table, ignoring the perplexed looks of the humans around her who wondered why the heck someone had been under than table in the first place. Cherry, having shapeshifted into Fat Amy’s human form, strode over to Beca, the brunette having approached a ‘ _Barden DJs_ ’ booth.

“Ahh yeah, DJ’s!” Cherry said as similarly as she thought the Australian had acted when Fat Amy had been talking to Chloe not so long ago, “Deaf Jews..” she read, turning to Beca while pointing at the ‘ _Barden DJs_ ’ Info. board. She mimicked scratching some decks while making a deck-scratching-sound, her soul sinking a little when she saw Beca hesitate then realise what the ‘DJ’ in ‘ _Barden DJs’_ actually meant.

Two of the representatives from the booth greeted them with a jolly “Shalom!” and in order to try and strike up some sort of affinity with Beca, the angel leant on the booth table and said loudly to the two male humans stood in front of them, “That’s not a real word but keep trying! You will get there!” knowing that sarcasm was high on Beca’s conversation techniques.

It appeared to be a good move, a smirk wiping over Beca’s face as she looked at her, “Not a lot of Jewish people where you’re from?”

Cherry hesitated slightly, “Uhhh,” and managed to tap into a section of the Australian’s brain to scrape together some sort of story that might make sense, “nah I did do Fiddler on the Roof though in high school. It was like me and some aboriginals and it was really Jewish. It was full on Jew..”

Cherry saw her assigned human begin to walk off awkwardly. She needed to find a way of getting Beca over to Chloe. It was risky trying to enforce some sort of fate like this, but it was worth a try. So once she had given the two male humans her number on their sign-up sheet (an impulse that even Cherry couldn’t prevent, which showed just how strong a personality Fat Amy had) the angel scurried after Beca, still in the guise of Fat Amy.

It was highly likely that the last scrap of hope would have disappeared from Beca’s ‘soul pie chart’ now. Cherry could feel it. And it was this feeling that drove her to continue talking to her human.

“Hey so if it’s music you’re interested in there’s a booth over there?” Cherry said as she pointed in the direction of Chloe and _The_ _Barden_ _Bellas_ ’ booth, “They perform at national competitions. Probably in LA and New York City?”

To her delight she saw Beca hesitate, because the angel _knew_ Beca, and she knew that the brunette had a desire to move to LA and make it big in the music industry. Cherry felt a tingle of hope which mimicked the tiny ounce of hope in Beca’s soul and to her delight she watched as Beca turned to her, smiling politely, then nodding with a quiet “Uh..thanks..” and wandered off in search of the booth.

Cherry dashed to a nearby table, scrambled under, and immediately shifted back to her invisible self. She had to be witness to all of the first interaction between her two assigned humans. She just _had_ to.

So with a snap of her fingers Cherry appeared invisibly at Chloe’s side. She saw the way the redhead was looking around. She saw the way Beca was wandering slowly a few booths down, also looking around as she got closer to _The_ _Barden_ _Bellas_ ’ booth. With one final trick up her sleeve, the angel blew gently across Chloe’s face, a move that caused a light breeze to drift over the booth, and Chloe turned her face with it.

Cherry - whose soul was connected with both Beca’s and Chloe’s - felt Chloe’s heart skip a beat as the redhead’s eyes clasped onto Beca a few booths away.

“Ooh what about her?” Chloe asked Aubrey, motioning to Beca. But Aubrey didn’t seem convinced.

“Oh I don’t know..she seems a little too _alternative_..” Aubrey responded.

To the angel’s joy, Chloe ignored her best friend, immediately thrusting a flyer out at Beca before the brunette could pass their booth. Beca stopped and looked from the flyer up to Chloe.

Cherry snapped her fingers and Earth time stood still. All the humans around the invisible angel froze. But no two humans were more important to the angel than the two stood before her now. _Her_ two humans. These two were meant to be together. Were meant to fall in love. Were meant to spend their lives together. God had assigned her these two humans (via Aphrodite) for a reason.

Cherry had no idea how she was possibly going to do it. But as she floated closer to her humans, peering intently at Beca’s expression, then over at Chloe’s expression, her soul leapt a little. Because this first look was the beginning of something special. Cherry just _knew_ it.

Fuelled by the knowledge that Chloe had a higher confidence than she’d had a week ago, the angel snapped her fingers again, and Earth time began again. The humans around her unfroze, and her two humans continued to look at one another while Chloe spoke passionately about acapella singing and the acapella group’s on campus.

Cherry watched curiously as Chloe counteracted each of Beca’s sarcastic comments with soft looks, Aubrey taking the most offence of Beca’s words. But the angel wasn’t here for the blonde.

Cherry snapped her fingers and her brown assignment file appeared. She consulted both her human’s ‘soul pie charts’, her attention immediately drawn to the way ‘ _hope_ ’ had increased on Chloe’s and ‘ _curiosity_ ’ had increased on Beca’s. The angel looked over to the ‘ _significant_ _people_ ’ section and to her surprise she already saw ‘ _redhaired girl from the fair_ ’ slowly beginning to appear at the bottom of Beca’s relatively short list. Cherry’s soul rose as she made to look at Chloe’s ‘ _significant_ _people_ ’ section. To her dismay the words ‘beautiful alt-girl from the fair’ that had already been faintly written at the bottom of the long list, was fading fast just as Beca said to Chloe that acapella was “pretty lame”.

The angel rolled her eyes, snapping her fingers to make her assignment file disappear. She thought this had all been too good to be true. The least Beca could do would be to attend the audition. At least then Cherry would have something to work on between Beca and Chloe.

But the more stubborn, sarcastic human stated that she couldn’t sing, then turned to leave. As she walked off Cherry could feel Chloe’s heart sink.

The angel couldn’t bring herself to look at the stats in the assignment file after that relatively terrible interaction between her two assigned humans. She would need to keep a close eye on them over the next few Earth days, and perhaps try to arrange a meeting with Aphrodite, to work out what had possibly gone wrong on this occasion.

Unbeknownst to Cherry, one of the repercussions of her shapeshifting was taking affect. Because the male human who had grinned at Beca in the taxi earlier was just signing up to become an intern with the campus radio station, signing his name three lines below Beca’s…


	5. The Shower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cherry manages to get her humans to meet again...

“So, what can I do for you?”

Cherry sat in a chair in Aphrodite’s office as the Godess of Love sat before her, a kind smile on her face. It was two Earth weeks after Cherry’s humans had met and since then they had had no interaction. Their Cupid was at her wits end.

“I don’t know if I’m cut out for this.” Cherry said in a sad tone, letting out a sigh, “I’ve tried and I’ve tried and I’ve  _tried_  to get my two humans to cross paths again and I just can’t!”

The Goddess remained quiet while watching the angel closely. She had monitored thousands of Cupid’s before now, but none like Cherry. The angel was clever and sharp, but also enthusiastic and kind, with a big heart. These qualities were just what God had requested when picking a Cupid for these two particular humans.

“Remember what you learnt in your first argonate of training, Cherry. Patience is vital if you are ever going to succeed in bringing your humans together.” Aphrodite said in a soft and serene tone.

“But I  _have_  been patient!” Cherry insisted, her eyebrows rising, “I’ve been by their sides, trying to look for an opportunity to bring them together but  _nothing_. Beca has stayed in her room most of the time other than to go to an internship she got at a radio station. Which - I might add - has been messing things up because of some male human called ‘Jesse’ who happens to intern there too.”

“Did you shape-shift during your time down there?” Aphrodite asked calmly and Cherry hesitated, swallowing loudly.

“Uh…once or twice.” And the Goddess shrugged, as if that were the answer as to why this ‘Jesse’ was now a problem. He was a consequence of Cherry’s shape-shifting.

“But I only did it to get Beca and Chloe to meet. And they did!” The angel explained, though she knew it was a poor answer.

Aphrodite smiled gently, remaining calm while the angel freaked out a little. Cherry had a particularly difficult case. Most of her classmates had been assigned a male and a female human as their ‘couple to bring together’ - a combination that was fully accepted in most societies down on Earth. A female and female human however? Far less accepted within ‘American’ society, which made the ‘bringing together’ more difficult. Especially when those two female humans considered their sexuality as ‘straight’. Cherry had it all to do but it was vital that she do it.

“And don’t even get me started on Chloe, who seems to have an ‘on again/off again’ thing with a male human called ‘Tom’.” Cherry added with a sigh, “Now  _that’s_  nothing to do with my shape-shifting. She’d started seeing him during the Earth summer earlier that Earth year.”

Aphrodite took a deep breath, saying softly, “Human factors are-“

“-complicated. Yeah I know. Seventh Argonate..” The angel finished, explaining how she knew. There was a pause as she looked at the Goddess of Love and wondered how the spirit could be so calm.

“Cherry if this were easy, we’d have humans together in a heartbeat.” Aphrodite said kindly, “But humans are such complicated creatures, we can’t possibly bring them together with no explaination. They need a story. They need a connection. They need a reason to be together. It’s not enough to just say that it’s ‘because God wanted it’.”

The angel sat still, looking at the Goddess opposite her. Then after a few moments she said quietly, “I need some help. Please.”

Aphrodite appeared to pause, not ever being one to hesitate. It wasn’t in her nature. She took in the sight of the angel before her and reminded herself of the importance of this assignment. Of the importance that these two humans came together.

“What’s their common interest?” Aphrodite asked softly and Cherry’s face lit up, a spark appearing in her interest once again as she snapped her fingers and her thick assignment file appeared, floating beside her.

“Tattoo’s…” Cherry said as she rifled through to the ‘interests’ sections of both Beca and Chloe’s part of the file, “…and music.”

“If they were to meet by chance at something would it most likely be through music or tattoo’s?” Aphrodite hinted and Cherry didn’t even need to think about it.

“Music.” the angel said quickly.

“Do either of them have a favourite song?” Aphrodite helped, a soft smile on her face, already knowing the answer.

“Beca doesn’t have a favourite song. She tends to listen to the same song over and over while mixing it with another song. She secretly prides herself in doing it.” The Cupid said as she flipped through the file, pausing on Chloe’s ‘interests’ page, “But Chloe’s favourite song of the moment is something called ‘ _Titanium_ ’.”

“Is it likely to be a song that Beca has heard of?”

“Yes.”

“Then it seems as though you may have found your way of bringing them together.” Aphrodite said with a calm smile, and Cherry gave the Goddess a grateful smile back.

—————

Cherry floated invisibly, patiently, by the door to one of Barden University campus’ showers, the ones in Beca’s living block. She’d spent the past few Earth days ensuring that ‘ _Titanium_ ’ played on every music device that the brunette had walked past. To her delight, the human had found the beat of the song particularly useful, and had begun mixing it in her dorm the previous Earth day.

Chloe, meanwhile, had been spending her days doing as Aubrey told her in the lead-up to Barden’s Acapella Auditions in two Earth days time, and having lots of sex with Tom, the inconvenient male human. Cherry never stuck around for the particulars, but being connected to Chloe’s soul meant she felt how good her human felt during specific moments with Tom. The Cupid knew that Chloe loved having sex in the shower. She also knew that Chloe wanted to have sex in the shower tonight. That was why tonight Cherry had managed to ensure that all of the showers except the ones in Beca’s block, were out of order.

To the angel’s delight she watched as Beca approached the door to the showers, donning a dark navy blue dressing gown and flip flops, her washbag in hand. And the Human was singing to herself. She was singing Chloe’s favourite song.

“ _You shout it out_ ,” Beca sang quietly as she pushed through the door into the shower room, stepping inside, “ _but I can’t hear a word you say_.” Cherry floated behind her, feeling excited as she felt Chloe’s heart skip a beat at the sound of Beca’s voice. Because she knew her other human was already in here. And she froze Earth time for a moment to consult the ‘soul pie charts’ of her humans.

The Cupid snapped her fingers and her assignment file appeared beside her, floating. Cherry pulled out the sections that had the ever-changing pie charts on and to her joy she saw Chloe’s curiosity had suddenly spiked, and that Beca’s ‘contentment’ was at its highest yet. This plan might actually work.

Cherry snapped her fingers again, the file disappearing and Earth time beginning again as she floated invisibly behind Beca while the human wandered over to a shower cubical, still singing to herself, “ _I’m talking loud, not saying much_.”

The brunette hung her washbag up in the entrance to her cubical, tucking the towel there too, “ _I’m criticised, but all your bullets ricochet_.” The human tugged her dressing gown from around her body and hung it up, “ _You shoot me down, but I get up_.”

Cherry turned to see Chloe poke her head out from around her own shower curtain, a broad smile on her face as she looked down towards Beca’s shower where the singing was coming from. The Cupid had been working hard on increasing the redhead’s confidence over the past couple of Earth weeks, having not felt that the human’s confidence had been high enough upon first meeting her soulmate. Cherry hoped that Chloe had plenty of confidence by now.

The human began slowly walking down towards the voice while Beca turned her shower on, bringing her hands out to feel the temperature of the water while she began singing the chorus, “ _I’m bulletproof, nothing to lose. Fire away, fire away_ ”

Cherry watched with baited breath as Chloe stopped at the closed shower curtain. The Cupid could feel how fast Chloe’s heart was racing and she snapped her fingers, stopping Earth time again. Cherry consulted the assignment file, immediately turning to Chloe’s soul pie chart. To her delight the redhead’s curiousity was still rising, and interestingly Cherry noticed that the ‘love’ section of the pie chart was slowly increasing too. This was actually working. One of her humans was falling in love with the sound of the other’s voice without even knowing it was her!

As Earth time unfroze, Cherry watched as Chloe slowly peeled back the shower curtain, a bright smile on her face with an awed expression while the redhead recognised the figure of the petite young woman before her. The Cupid felt Chloe’s heart skip a beat at the sight of Beca, who had her back to the intruder. And the angel couldn’t help but squeal a little to herself with excitement.

“ _Ricochet, you take your aim-“_

This was it. This was going to be their moment. The moment these two humans would remember for the rest of their-

“You  _can_  sing!!” Chloe called out eagerly to Beca, stepping into the cubical, invading Beca’s space while the brunette let out a yelp and a terrified “ _Dude_!!” slinging the curtain closed but the redhead was too fast, pulling it back over.

The accosted human backed her way against the wall of the shower cubical, looking horrified at the intrusion and Chloe stepped a little further inside, “How high can your belt go?” she asked intensely, leaning forward to shut the shower off.

“My  _what_?” Beca asked quickly, watching as Chloe turned the shower off, “Oh my god!”

Cherry floated invisibly beside them, feeling somewhat guilty. Okay perhaps she’d given Chloe a little  _too_  much confidence. Now the human had seemed to go to the other extreme and was currently very much in Beca’s personal space.

“You  _have_  to audition for The Bellas.” Chloe insisted, but Cherry began to feel Beca panic.

“I can’t concentrate on anything you’re saying until you cover your junk.” the petite human said, clinging to her shower items to cover her chest.

Cherry snapped her fingers to freeze Earth time again. Her two humans remained frozen, Beca’s beady dark blue eyes looking terrified, Chloe’s bright blue eyes looking adoringly.

Consulting her assignment file, she found the section on ‘Significant People’. On Chloe’s list ‘ _the beautiful brunette in the showers_ ’ had already appeared and to the Cupid’s surprise was a little higher up the list than expected - Beca was definitely meaning something to Chloe. On Beca’s list, however ‘ _Scary redhead in the showers_ ’ was beginning to appear at the bottom of the list - ‘scary’ hadn’t exactly been a description Cherry had wanted Beca to call Chloe but there was time for that to change. So the Cupid unfroze Earth time then Chloe kindly added, “Just consider it.”

Cherry cringed slightly as Beca grappled at the shower curtain to hold against her naked body while Chloe powered on, “One time we sang back-up for Prince. His butt is so tiny I swear I could hold it with, like, one hand.” and the redhead had been so enthusiastic, she knocked a shampoo bottle out of Beca’s hand. “Oops!” the older human said in an amused tone.

Beca had ducked down quickly to grab the bottle then shot back up to face the wall, hiding her modesty a little better, looking over her shoulder at Chloe, speaking in an unimpressed tone, “Seriously? I am nude.”

“You were singing Titanium, right?” Chloe asked keenly, and Beca paused.

Cherry could feel her two human’s hearts beating a little quicker at their own rates as the brunette smiled a little awkwardly at the intruder, “You know David Guetta?”

Huh…perhaps the whole ‘adding confidence to Chloe’s personality’ thing hadn’t been such a bad decision…

“Have I been living under a rock?” Chloe asked rhetorically and Cherry smiled, freezing Earth time again to consult the ‘soul pie charts’. Because one of Beca’s personality traits was sarcasm. And this response from Chloe was actually fairly close to sarcasm. The Cupid found some hope when she noticed that Beca’s curiosity had increased tenfold, and she looked at the brunette’s expression. There was a hint of a smile. This plan was working! Cherry snapped her fingers to unfreeze Earth time.

“Yeah, that song is my jam,” Chloe said, then she lowered her voice and gave Beca a suggestive look, mumbling, “my lady jam…”

Cherry felt the way Beca’s stomach rolled with the fact her intruder had just shared with her, and the human turned to face the wall, leaning her forehead against it while she muttered politely, “That’s nice.”

“It is.” Chloe replied proudly, “That song really builds.” and the redhead winked at the younger human while Beca grimaced.

“Gross”, Beca whispered, but for all her negative body language, Cherry could feel Beca’s curiosity still building. She  _was_  interested by this woman, even if Chloe was being a little too forward for her liking.

“Can you sing it for me?” Chloe asked hopefully, and the Cupid could  _feel_  the hope rising in Chloe’s soul.

“Dude  _no_ , get out!” Beca snapped incredulously, looking over her shoulder at Chloe.

“Not for that reason!” Chloe assured, watching as Beca turned back to the wall, landing her forehead back against the shower wall with a little thud. “I’m not leaving until you sing. So…” Chloe demanded and Cherry swallowed loudly. This could now go one of two ways. Chloe’s massive confidence could be too much for Beca and the brunette would run out of the showers never to see Chloe again.  _Or_  Chloe’s massive confidence would give Beca no other choice but to sing for Chloe.

And the angel knew before either of her humans did. Beca would sing for Chloe. Because she could feel Beca psyching herself up to have the confidence to do it.

So Beca turned slowly to face Chloe, tucking her shower things against her naked body, and she looked nervously from Chloe’s eyes to the side of the shower back to Chloe’s eyes, over and over as she prepared herself then began to sing, “ _I’m bulletproof, nothing to lose_ …”

“ _Fire away, fire away._ ” Chloe harmonised with Beca and Cherry’s jaw dropped. The immediate love she felt from this simple moment her two humans were sharing was stronger than anything she’d ever felt before in her life. Beca and Chloe had felt it too, now staring deep into one another’s eyes while they continued harmonising the song.

“ _Richocet, you take your aim_.  _Fire away, fire away._ ”

Beca still looked as though she were a puppy backed into a corner while she looked up nervously at Chloe. But Cherry knew the younger human was no longer nervous because of Chloe’s confidence. Beca was nervous because she’d never experienced a connection like this with any human before, and she was frantically trying to work out what this all meant.

“ _Shoot me down, but I won’t fall. I am titanium._ ” Beca’s arms had relaxed, the human no longer worrying about hiding her naked body, now currently stunned at the situation she was in. Chloe’s heart had soared upon seeing this, loving this moment. Their Cupid was grinning broadly as she floated invisibly beside them. She had heard other Cupid’s of old talk about the magical moment ‘their humans’ first met. How incredibly satisfying it was. And wonderful. And Cherry had to agree, this moment was unlike anything she’d ever felt before.

“ _Shoot me down, but I won’t fall_.” A smile had appeared on Chloe’s face.

“ _I am titanium_.” The humans ended their duet and there was a pause as the shower cubical fell silent. Cherry held her breath as she watched Beca and Chloe stood naked before one another with broad smiles on their faces, their eyes locked, their hearts racing.

The Cupid snapped her fingers, freezing Earth time once again (and her humans) and consulting the assignment file that floated beside her. Her heart soared.

Chloe was now stated as ‘ _Beautiful confident redhead in the shower_ ’ on Beca’s list of ‘important people’ and the woman had shot up from the bottom to mid-table. The angel flipped over to the ‘soul pie chart’ and to her joy a rather large chunk of the chart now belonged to ‘singing duet in the shower’. And a tiny segment of that chart was also growing slightly with the label ‘love’. This moment meant  _a lot_  to Beca right now. And Cherry was pleased she’d taken the time to consult the ever-changing pie chart, or she may have missed it.

Chloe’s list of ‘important people’ was far longer, but ‘ _beautiful brunette in the shower_ ’ was still in a very good position on the list. And Chloe’s pie chart also boasted a large chunk dedicated to ‘singing duet in the shower’. As well as a fairly large sized ‘love’ segment too. Beca must mean a lot to Chloe right now as well.

The Cupid closed the assignment file with a content sigh. Brilliant! Her work here was almost done! She unfroze time, and watched in delight as her humans looked into one another’s eyes a little longer. Then suddenly Beca’s eyes drifted down to Chloe’s chest and the younger human immediately drew her eyes to the ceiling, embarrassed that they were both naked.

Chloe, and her recently found confidence (thanks to the Cupid’s invisible persuasion) motioned to her own naked body, “Oh, yeah…” and she nodded with a confident smile on her face while Beca looked back at her with an amused expression, “I’m pretty confident about…all this.”

Beca nodded gently, looking fleetingly back down at Chloe’s chest with pursed lips, before looking back up into her eyes, “You should be.”

Chloe rose her eyebrows, “Oh..” and turned to pick up Beca’s towel, offering it to the brunette who took it with a bit of hesitation, whispering, “I still need to shower..”

To the invisible Cupid’s dismay, she watched as a young man,  _Tom_ , arrived at the entrance to the shower cubical with a smarmy grin on his face. He looked over at Beca, giving her a nod, “You have a lovely voice.”

Cherry could feel Beca’s heart suddenly racing, panic setting in again as the brunette yelled a disapproving, “Thanks”.

The Cupid watched as Chloe ushered the young male human out of the shower cubical to return to their own cubical.

Her humans had been  _so_  close to getting together right there and then. She could’ve completed her training!

But no. She still had more work to do…


End file.
